Israel’s i24 Fights for Space in Crowded Global Cable TV Market

Alongside CNN, the BBC and Al Jazeera, is there room for another international news channel with an Israeli voice?

That is one of the key questions facing i24, an upstart Israeli news channel based in Tel Aviv which began broadcasting in July. The channel will have to demonstrate that an Israeli take on the news around world can draw mass audiences from the Jewish state’s Arab neighbors, Europe and the U.S.

Broadcasting in English, French and Arabic, the channel is being financed by French-Israeli communications mogul Patrick Drahi and its operations spearheaded by Chief Executive Frank Melloul, a former French Foreign Ministry spokesman who helped found France’s government-owned news channel, France 24.

Acutely aware that many suspect i24 as Israeli public relations foil, Mr. Melloul and station executives are quick to remind listeners they are privately owned and don’t receive any funding from the Israeli government.

Mr. Melloul acknowledges that his roots are in public diplomacy, not journalism, and he isn’t shy about i24′s Israeli identity and mission: serving as an “alternative” to Al Jazeera and enhancing Israeli soft power by playing up the country’s democracy.

“I am not a journalist, I am a diplomat,” said Mr. Melloul. “My mission is to help Israel change its image.”

He says that Mr. Drahi – who owns an Israeli cable television provider and a cellular phone service provider – envisioned an Israeli version of France 24, which was established by the French government to provide a French voice amid the many cable news channel offerings.

I24 will cover international news like CNN or Al Jazeera, but from the perspective of Israel’s “diverse” society, Mr. Melloul said. The channel will feature a news room with Jewish and Arab journalists working together, a display which he insists is an answer to allegations that Israel practices Apartheid-like discrimination against Palestinians.

“My concern is not to say that the government took a good decision. My concern is explain why the Israeli government took this decision. And I give an opportunity for Israeli citizens to debate on a talk show about this decision.”

The chief executive declined to say what the channel’s operating budget is, but said he thinks the channel can break-even in four years.

Cable operators are usually dubious about adding a new news channel, but Mr. Melloul says he has signed up service providers covering France, Spain, Kenya and Nigeria to offer the channel in their basic packages.

The channel’s broadcast studios are located in a converted warehouse alongside the docked fishing boats of the newly gentrified Jaffa port. Jaffa is significant, says Mr. Melloul, because it is an ancient gateway to the region and because it is where Theodore Herzl, the Austrian Jewish founding father of modern Zionism, first landed in Palestine.

On a recent visit to the news channel’s gleaming news room, there was an unusual hush as producers discussed covering a looming U.S. attack on Syria – a live shot from a battery of patriot missiles in northern Israel and information about the government authorizing a limited reservist call-up.

It is unclear, however, exactly how the news station will be able compete with the newsgathering operations of the incumbent cable news powers. With a staff of 150 journalists, i24 so far only has about 25 foreign correspondents – almost all employed on a freelance basis.

I24 executives argue that they are the only international news channel located at the heart of the Middle East, but their reporting effort is limited by Israel’s isolation: Newsgathering efforts in Gaza or Beirut are being kept underwraps because of the hostility of governments there toward the Jewish state. The news channel has no presence in Syria.

Despite it all, there is a precedent for Israeli broadcasters winning the attention of their neighbors. Israel’s state-run radio channel has won listeners throughout the Middle East with its Arabic language and Persian language broadcasts.

Bernard Tanous, the chief Arabic language news producer, acknowledged that i24′s Arab world reporting effort is still a work in progress.

But he sees the channel’s main appeal to the Arab world through its Israel coverage. “The most important thing is that I give exclusivity on the Israeli story,” he said. “I think that viewers in the Arab world are interested to know what Israel is thinking now.”